Vice President Operations; Southeast

Overview

Summit School Services companies share a strong commitment to provide the highest level of transportation safety, quality transportation, outstanding customer service and positive employee relations. Our corporate headquarters, located in Warrenville, Illinois, houses the administrative and corporate support functions for the organization. Our 250+ local customer service centers (CSCs) are supported by regional operations teams located throughout North America.

Position Overview

The Vice President of Operations ensures operational excellence across a geographically diverse portfolio by standardizing best practices, driving performance discipline, and building a strong leadership bench. The VP plays a critical role in shaping culture, strengthening compliance, enabling scalable growth, and ensuring that Region Managers and the locations they lead operate with clarity, alignment, and accountability. This role also serves as a strategic thought partner to the SVP, influencing enterprise priorities through operational insight and field‑driven feedback.

Reporting Structure

• Reports to:
  
  Senior Vice President, Operations
• Direct Reports:
  Region Managers (2–X regions depending on scope)

Key Responsibilities & Expectations

Operational Leadership

The VP, Operations is expected to use data‑driven insights to identify performance trends, intervene with precision, and uphold a high‑performance operating rhythm across all regional teams.

• Driving overall operational performance across regions, ensuring results meet or exceed standards for safety, service delivery, labor stability, cost controls, and profitability.
• Establishing consistency by standardizing operational processes and ensuring best practices are implemented and sustained across every location.
• Preparing regions for scale—ensuring readiness for new contracts, expansions, and customer‑driven growth by proactively addressing operational gaps and resource needs.
• Leading stabilization and turnaround efforts in underperforming regions, deploying targeted remediation plans, and ensuring accountability for rapid improvement.

Drive Revenue Growth

The VP, Operations is expected to have a growth‑mindset and continuously be securing new opportunities to increase revenue through expanding routes and charter activity across all regional areas.

• Develop a growth‑mindset with General Managers and teams to ensure local opportunities are identified and implemented.

Leadership & Talent Development

The VP, Operations cultivates a disciplined talent culture where performance is clear, coaching is proactive, and leadership readiness is continuously strengthened.

• Coaching and developing Region Managers through structured performance expectations, regular 1:1 engagement, and clear feedback mechanisms.
• Fostering a culture rooted in people‑first leadership, safety, customer service, performance excellence, and continuous improvement.
• Holding Region Managers accountable for developing General Managers and CSC leadership, ensuring capable pipelines.
• Leading succession planning for Region Manager and General Manager roles, identifying high‑potential leaders and supporting their development.
• Partnering with HR to assess leadership bench strength, identify skills gaps, and implement development plans that support organizational growth.

Execution & Alignment

The VP, Operations acts as a critical conduit between enterprise strategy and field execution, ensuring that organizational priorities translate into tangible operational outcomes.

• Converting the Company’s direction, policies and processes into clear regional action plans with measurable objectives and execution milestones.
• Ensuring initiatives and standards are deployed consistently with strong change‑management support and follow‑through.
• Serving as the escalation leader for complex operational, labor, safety, or service issues, enabling rapid resolution and protecting the customer experience.
• Prioritizing and filtering issues to shield the SVP from unnecessary operational noise, elevating only high‑impact concerns.

Field Presence & Stakeholder Engagement

The VP, Operations is expected to be a highly visible field leader—balancing strategic…